


bigger than these bones

by asterisms



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-02
Updated: 2015-11-02
Packaged: 2018-04-29 15:16:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5132339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asterisms/pseuds/asterisms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a different world, she could have been an angel. In a different world, he could have had an answer worth giving.</p>
            </blockquote>





	bigger than these bones

**Author's Note:**

> AU where Anakin never became a Jedi.

Eyes down.

Shoulders hunched.

Hands limp and lifeless.

He walks, barely lifting his feet from the ground, his steps short and careful. He is neither fast nor slow, and he is not seen. Slaves are common here, and he is not worth noticing. It has always been this way. For as long as he can remember, he has walked small. His heart is loud, his mother says, but never his voice. It was, once. It must have been. If he tries, he can almost remember laughter and a time when words were spoken without a care to who might hear. He can still see his mother’s smile; the real one, not the strained, broken thing that crawls across her face when she can do nothing else. The songs his mother used to sing, the ones from before she stopped singing, are with him always.

He remembers what it was like to be free, even if it was just pretend.

He remembers a lot of things. He isn’t sure if this is a blessing or a curse.

The street is crowded. Beings of all sorts mingle to buy and sell.

He was bought once. He has been bought more than once.

He doesn’t like to think about it.

His Master’s voice is loud. He thinks it might be the loudest thing he’s ever heard, but he knows this cannot be true. The storms of his home are surely louder. He can still hear them when the others shout at night, and if he pretends hard enough, the lashes are nothing more than sand against his skin. Sometimes, it’s not so bad here.

But his knees ache and there is blood on the floor and his Master’s voice is loud.

He is so tired of kneeling.

He stands before the crowd on a raised platform. It makes it easy to look beyond them, to pretend that he is no longer in his body. That none of this is real.

He has been given clothes this time, but he might as well be naked. Their eyes cut through him either way. And yet, they do not see him. They see credits and muscle mass and how long he can go without sleep before he collapses. He is not a person, not here. Not anywhere that counts. The voices of the crowd are a dull roar, washing over him and beyond, leaving nothing in their wake. He doesn’t understand what they’re saying. The words sound familiar but he cannot piece them together. He isn’t sure he wants to.

He is to be bought again.

“You’re a slave?” She sounds horrified, and he wants to laugh at her, to show her his scars and see if she will faint. Her skin is pale and her hands look soft.

He doesn’t respond. The answer should be obvious.

He spends his days working as he always has.

He ignores the pain as best he can and he survives.

One day, he thinks, he will be free. He will be free and he will run away and he will never look back.

One day, but not today.

He has always been good at surviving.

Where the others fall from sickness or fatigue, he stays steadfast and strong. The suns of his home have kissed his skin golden and he does not burn, even after hours working in the fields. There have been countless times where he gave up his rations to the sick and the dying, if only to give them a semblance of comfort before the end, and he has never suffered for it.

There is something in him that wants to live.

There is something in him that will never die, even when his body finally fails, as all bodies eventually must.

Three years have come and gone when he sees the girl again. This time, she is not alone.

Her companion is a man cloaked in dull brown who walks with a confidence that is not often seen in the outer rim. It is a quiet thing, but a sure one, and he longs to be closer. He doesn’t have any time to spare, but still he watches them as they go. Everything he is sings for him to go to this man, to stand beside him and bare his soul. They could be everything. He knows this is true just as he knows how his mother died in pain and alone, light-years away. But he stays where he is. Soon, the feeling will fade.

Once the pair passes out of sight, he sighs and goes back to his work. It was foolish, anyway. He doesn’t know this man. Not really.

He is nothing.

He brushes through the crowd with quiet thoughts and eyes cast to the ground.

Do not see me, he thinks, and they do not.

Each move he makes pulls at still healing skin, but he doesn’t let the dull ache stop him. His new Master is an impatient being, and although he is not afraid, he does not want to be punished so soon.  Just as he is about to turn toward one of the many alleyways that branch off of the main street, a hand stretches out into his path. He doesn’t flinch.

“Excuse me,” he hears. With a barely held sigh, he turns. It is second nature by now not to meet someone’s eyes, but the dull cloak and the way this man stands is enough for him to remember. He’s with the girl again. “Could you direct us to the governor's hall?”

“Of course,” he answers. He is headed there, anyway. It’s no trouble. “Follow me.”

He leads the way through the maze of side streets, brushing off any hints of conversation even as he wants nothing more than to know these people as deeply as possible. He’s wanted many things in his life, and he’s never been allowed to have any of them. There is no reason this should be any different.

Besides, no one in their right mind would choose to know a slave.

When they reach the hall, they thank him and the man presses a credit chip into his hand. He is startled enough that he forgets himself, and he looks up. The man smiles placidly, blankly, and turns to leave, entirely unaware of the significance of what had just happened. But then, why would he know? He has no reason to, for surely a man such as he has nothing to do with slaves or their rules. Once his business is complete, the man will leave, and he will never think of this place or its people again.

For some reason, the thought is distressing.

Most things are, however, and just as he always has, he will move on.

He knows tension well.

He sees it all around him, and he knows as well as anyone that it will snap soon.

His brothers and sisters in slavery are restless and ready for blood to soak the streets, and he will join them. He was born for war.

Peace is for the free and the foolish, and he is neither.

The others watch him with hungry eyes.

Their anger snaps at his feet, ready to be directed and put to use. His own anger burns just as brightly, and it swells in his chest like a scream he’s been biting back for years. The bodies of the fallen are piled high and as the flames lick at their clothes and hair, he vows that their deaths will not be in vain. Rebellions are not uncommon here, but this one was the first in centuries to get so far. The Masters think they have ended it with this massacre, but he knows this is just the beginning, even if he has to make it so.

He kneels beside the pyre and bows his head.

This has gone on too long.

All he knows is slavery. Pain and fear and the kind of hunger that burrows itself so deeply in your bones that even the most bountiful feast couldn’t chase it away. Perhaps it is time for something new.

He does not yet know why he has been chosen to lead, but he will bring these people to their freedom if it’s the last thing he does. As he listens to the cries of his brothers and sisters, he turns his gaze to the sky.  He has often dreamed of leaving this place behind. He no longer cares how.

To die in the quest for freedom, he thinks, would not be a bad death at all.

The stars stretch endlessly above him.

One day, he will be among them. But for now, he is held here, grounded, bound first by the shackles of his former Masters, and now by the duty he has to see this war to its end. They have taken their freedom. Now they must defend it.

He knows this is right, that he should have fought long ago, but still he cannot shake the feeling of wrong that has haunted him since before his last days with his mother. There is a fire in his heart that could burn empires to the ground, if he would only let it, but this is not the empire he was made for.  He doesn’t know how or why, but he knows this is true. Something fell out of place, many years ago, and it has yet to right itself, no matter how much closer he gets to the way of things with every day that passes.

He thinks of the man with the dull cloak and quiet eyes, the one who seemed so familiar and yet so far from everything he knows, and he wonders.

A question from long ago comes unbidden to his mind, along with the girl who had asked it. In a different world, she could have been an angel. In a different world, he could have had an answer worth giving.

My name is Anakin, he would say, and I’m a person.

  
My name is Anakin, he thinks, and I’m not supposed to be here.


End file.
